Editing John Hay (section)

===Theodore Roosevelt administration===
====Staying on====
[[File:President Theodore Roosevelt, 1904.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Theodore Roosevelt]]]]
Hay, again next in line to the presidency, remained in Washington as McKinley's body was transported to the capital by funeral train, and stayed there as the late president was taken to Canton for interment.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=407, 410}} He had admired McKinley, describing him as "awfully like Lincoln in many respects"{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=337}} and wrote to a friend, "what a strange and tragic fate it has been of mine—to stand by the bier of three of my dearest friends, Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley, three of the gentlest of men, all risen to be head of the State, and all done to death by assassins".{{sfn|Thayer II|p=266}}

By letter, Hay offered his resignation to Roosevelt while the new president was still in Buffalo, amid newspaper speculation that Hay would be replaced.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=409–10}} When Hay met the funeral train in Washington, Roosevelt greeted him at the station and immediately told him he must stay on as secretary.{{sfn|Thayer II|p=268}} According to Zeitz, "Roosevelt's accidental ascendance to the presidency made John Hay an essential anachronism&nbsp;... the wise elder statesman and senior member of the cabinet, he was indispensable to TR, who even today remains the youngest president ever".{{sfn|Zeitz 2014a|p=332}}

The deaths of his son and of McKinley were not the only griefs Hay suffered in 1901—on September 26, John Nicolay died after a long illness, as did Hay's close friend [[Clarence King]] on Christmas Eve.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=411, 413}}

====Panama====
Hay's involvement in the efforts to have a canal joining the oceans in Central America went back to his time as Assistant Secretary of State under President [[Rutherford B. Hayes|Hayes]], when he served as translator for [[Ferdinand de Lesseps]] in his efforts to interest the American government in investing in his canal company. Hayes was only interested in the idea of a canal under American control, which de Lesseps's project would not be.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=190–91}} By the time Hay became Secretary of State, de Lesseps's project in Panama (then a Colombian province) had collapsed, as had an American-run project in Nicaragua.{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=344}} The 1850 [[Clayton–Bulwer Treaty]] (between the United States and Britain) forbade the United States from building a Central American canal that it exclusively controlled, and Hay, from early in his tenure, sought the removal of this restriction. But the Canadians, for whose foreign policy Britain was still available, saw the canal matter as their greatest leverage to get other disputes resolved in their favor, persuaded Salisbury not to resolve it independently. Shortly before Hay took office, Britain and the U.S. agreed to establish a Joint High Commission to adjudicate unsettled matters, which met in late 1898 but made slow progress, especially on the Canada-Alaska boundary.{{sfn|Kushner & Sherrill|pp=116–17}}{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=345–48}}

The Alaska issue became less contentious in August 1899 when the Canadians accepted a provisional boundary pending final settlement.{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=352}} With Congress anxious to begin work on a canal bill, and increasingly likely to ignore the Clayton-Bulwer restriction, Hay and British Ambassador [[Julian Pauncefote]] began work on a new treaty in January 1900. The first [[Hay–Pauncefote Treaty]] was sent to the Senate the following month, where it met a cold reception, as the terms forbade the United States from blockading or fortifying the canal, that was to be open to all nations in wartime as in peace. The [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] added an amendment allowing the U.S. to fortify the canal, then in March postponed further consideration until after the 1900 election. Hay submitted his resignation, which McKinley refused.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=366–70}} The treaty, as amended, was ratified by the Senate in December, but the British would not agree to the changes.{{sfn|Kushner & Sherrill|p=121}}

Despite the lack of agreement, Congress was enthusiastic about a canal, and was inclined to move forward, with or without a treaty. Authorizing legislation was slowed by discussion on whether to take the Nicaraguan or Panamanian route.{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=392}} Much of the negotiation of a revised treaty, allowing the U.S. to fortify the canal, took place between Hay's replacement in London, [[Joseph Hodges Choate|Joseph H. Choate]], and the British Foreign Secretary, [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne|Lord Lansdowne]], and the second Hay–Pauncefote Treaty was ratified by the Senate by a large margin on December 6, 1901.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=411–12}}

Seeing that the Americans were likely to build a Nicaragua Canal, the owners of the defunct French company, including [[Philippe Bunau-Varilla]], who still had exclusive rights to the Panama route, lowered their price. Beginning in early 1902, President Roosevelt became a backer of the latter route, and Congress passed legislation for it, if it could be secured within a reasonable time.{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=425}} In June, Roosevelt told Hay to take personal charge of the negotiations with Colombia.{{sfn|Gale|p=37}} Later that year, Hay began talks with Colombia's acting minister in Washington, [[Tomás Herrán]]. The [[Hay–Herrán Treaty]], granting $10&nbsp;million to Colombia for the right to build a canal, plus $250,000 annually, was signed on January 22, 1903, and ratified by the United States Senate two months later.{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=442}} In August, however, the treaty was rejected by the [[Colombian Senate]].{{sfn|Gale|p=38}}

Roosevelt was minded to build the canal anyway, using an earlier treaty with Colombia that gave the U.S. transit rights in regard to the [[Panama Railroad]]. Hay predicted "an insurrection on the Isthmus [of Panama] against that regime of folly and graft&nbsp;... at Bogotá".{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=478}} Bunau-Varilla gained meetings with both men, and assured them that a revolution, and a Panamanian government more friendly to a canal, was coming. In October, Roosevelt ordered Navy ships to be stationed near Panama. The Panamanians duly [[Separation of Panama from Colombia|revolted]] in early November 1903, with Colombian interference deterred by the presence of U.S. forces. By prearrangement, Bunau-Varilla was appointed representative of the nascent nation in Washington, and quickly negotiated the [[Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty]], signed on November 18, giving the United States the right to build the canal in [[Panama Canal Zone|a zone]] {{convert|10|mi}} wide, over which the U.S. would exercise full jurisdiction. This was less than satisfactory to the Panamanian diplomats who arrived in Washington shortly after the signing, but they did not dare renounce it. The treaty was approved by the two nations, and work on the [[Panama Canal]] began in 1904.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=478–503}} Hay wrote to Secretary of War [[Elihu Root]], praising "the perfectly regular course which the President did follow" as much preferable to armed occupation of the isthmus.{{sfn|Thayer II|p=324}}

====Relationship with Roosevelt, other events====
Hay had met the President's father, [[Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.]], during the Civil War, and during his time at the ''Tribune'' came to know the adolescent "Teddy", twenty years younger than himself.{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=258}} Although before becoming president Roosevelt often wrote fulsome letters of praise to Secretary Hay, his letters to others then and later were less complimentary. Hay felt Roosevelt too impulsive, and privately opposed his inclusion on the ticket in 1900, though he quickly wrote a congratulatory note after the convention.{{sfn|Kushner & Sherrill|pp=126–27}}

As President and Secretary of State, the two men took pains to cultivate a cordial relationship. Roosevelt read all ten volumes of the Lincoln biography{{sfn|Zeitz 2014a|p=332}} and in mid-1903, wrote to Hay that by then "I have had a chance to know far more fully what a really great Secretary of State you are".{{sfn|Gale|p=38}} Hay for his part publicly praised Roosevelt as "young, gallant, able, [and] brilliant", words that Roosevelt wrote that he hoped would be engraved on his tombstone.{{sfn|Zeitz 2014a|p=332}}

Privately, and in correspondence with others, they were less generous: Hay grumbled that while McKinley would give him his full attention, Roosevelt was always busy with others, and it would be "an hour's wait for a minute's talk".{{sfn|Zeitz 2014a|p=332}} Roosevelt, after Hay's death in 1905, wrote to Senator Lodge that Hay had not been "a great Secretary of State&nbsp;... under me he accomplished little&nbsp;... his usefulness to me was almost exclusively the usefulness of a fine figurehead".{{sfn|Zeitz 2014a|pp=332–33}} Nevertheless, when Roosevelt successfully sought [[1904 United States presidential election|election in his own right in 1904]], he persuaded the aging and infirm Hay to campaign for him, and Hay gave a speech linking the administration's policies with those of Lincoln: "there is not a principle avowed by the Republican party to-day which is out of harmony with his [Lincoln's] teaching or inconsistent with his character."{{sfn|Zeitz 2014a|p=335}} Kushner and Sherrill suggested that the differences between Hay and Roosevelt were more style than ideological substance.{{sfn|Kushner & Sherrill|p=127}}

In December 1902, the German government asked Roosevelt to arbitrate its dispute with Venezuela over unpaid debts. Hay did not think this appropriate, as Venezuela also owed the U.S. money, and quickly arranged for the [[International Court of Arbitration]] in The Hague to step in. Hay supposedly said, as final details were being worked out, "I have it all arranged. If Teddy will keep his mouth shut until tomorrow noon!"{{sfn|Kushner & Sherrill|pp=128–29}} Hay and Roosevelt also differed over the composition of the Joint High Commission that was to settle the Alaska boundary dispute. The commission was to be composed of "impartial jurists" and the British and Canadians duly appointed notable judges. Roosevelt appointed politicians, including Secretary Root and Senator Lodge. Although Hay was supportive of the President's choices in public, in private he protested loudly to Roosevelt, complained by letter to his friends, and offered his resignation. Roosevelt declined it, but the incident confirmed him in his belief that Hay was too much of an Anglophile to be trusted where Britain was concerned. The American position on the boundary dispute was imposed on Canada by a 4–2 vote, with the one English judge joining the three Americans.{{sfn|Kushner & Sherrill|pp=128–29}}

[[File:Editorial cartoon about the Perdicaris Incident.jpg|thumb|upright|Political cartoon on the [[Perdicaris affair]]]]
One incident involving Hay that benefitted Roosevelt politically was the kidnapping of Greek-American playboy [[Ion Perdicaris]] in Morocco{{efn|Cromwell Varley, Perdicaris's stepson by his wife's first marriage to an Englishman, was also kidnapped. See {{harvnb|Woolman}}.}} by chieftain [[Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli]], an opponent of Sultan [[Abdelaziz of Morocco|Abdelaziz]]. Raisuli demanded a ransom, but also wanted political prisoners to be released and control of [[Tangier]] in place of the military governor. Raisuli supposed Perdicaris to be a wealthy American, and hoped United States pressure would secure his demands. In fact, Perdicaris, though born in New Jersey, had renounced his citizenship during the Civil War to avoid Confederate confiscation of property in South Carolina, and had accepted Greek naturalization, a fact not generally known until years later, but that decreased Roosevelt's appetite for military action. The sultan was ineffective in dealing with the incident, and Roosevelt considered seizing the Tangier waterfront, source of much of Abdelaziz's income, as a means of motivating him. With Raisuli's demands escalating, Hay, with Roosevelt's approval, finally cabled the consul-general in Tangier, [[Samuel R. Gummere|Samuel Gummeré]]:

{{quote|We want Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.  We desire least possible complications with Morocco or other Powers.  You will not arrange for landing marines or seizing customs house without specific direction from the [State] department.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=510–14}}{{sfn|Woolman}}}}
[[File:C.M. Gilbert. - John Hay, c. 1904.jpg|thumb|right|Hay, circa 1904]]
The [[1904 Republican National Convention]] was in session, and the Speaker of the House, [[Joseph Gurney Cannon|Joseph Cannon]], its chair, read the first sentence of the cable—and only the first sentence—to the convention, electrifying what had been a humdrum coronation of Roosevelt.{{efn|Woolman, in his 1997 article on the incident, states that Roosevelt was behind Cannon's action. See {{harvnb|Woolman}}.}}{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=514–15}} "The results were perfect. This was the fighting Teddy that America loved, and his frenzied supporters—and American chauvinists everywhere—roared in delight."{{sfn|Woolman}} In fact, by then the sultan had already agreed to the demands, and Perdicaris was released. What was seen as tough talk boosted Roosevelt's election chances.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=514–15}}

====Final months and death====
Hay never fully recovered from the death of his son Adelbert, writing in 1904 to his close friend Lizzie Cameron that "the death of our boy made my wife and me old, at once and for the rest of our lives".{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=522–23}} Gale described Hay in his final years as a "saddened, slowly dying old man".{{sfn|Gale|p=36}}

Although Hay gave speeches in support of Roosevelt, he spent much of the fall of 1904 at his New Hampshire house or with his younger brother Charles, who was ill in Boston. After the election, Roosevelt asked Hay to remain another four years. Hay asked for time to consider, but the President did not allow it, announcing to the press two days later that Hay would stay at his post. Early 1905 saw futility for Hay, as a number of treaties he had negotiated were defeated or amended by the Senate—one involving the British dominion of [[Newfoundland]] due to Senator Lodge's fears it would harm his fisherman constituents. Others, promoting arbitration, were voted down or amended because the Senate did not want to be bypassed in the settlement of international disputes.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=523–28}}

By [[Second inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt|Roosevelt's inauguration]] on March 4, 1905, Hay's health was so bad that both his wife and his friend Henry Adams insisted on his going to Europe, where he could rest and get medical treatment. Presidential doctor [[Presley Rixey]] issued a statement that Hay was suffering from overwork, but in letters the secretary hinted his conviction that he did not have long to live.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=533–34}} An eminent physician in Italy prescribed medicinal baths for Hay's heart condition, and he duly journeyed to [[Bad Nauheim]], near [[Frankfurt]], Germany. Kaiser [[Wilhelm II]] was among the monarchs who wrote to Hay asking him to visit, though he declined; Belgian King [[Leopold II of Belgium|Leopold II]] succeeded in seeing him by showing up at his hotel, unannounced.{{sfn|Thayer II|p=400}} Adams suggested that Hay retire while there was still enough life left in him to do so, and that Roosevelt would be delighted to act as his own Secretary of State.{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=538}} Hay jokingly wrote to sculptor [[Augustus Saint-Gaudens]] that "there is nothing the matter with me except old age, the Senate, and one or two other mortal maladies".{{sfn|Thayer II|p=401}}

After the course of treatment, Hay went to Paris and began to take on his workload again by meeting with the French foreign minister, [[Théophile Delcassé]]. In London, King [[Edward VII]] broke protocol by meeting with Hay in a small drawing room, and Hay lunched with Whitelaw Reid, ambassador in London at last. There was not time to see all who wished to see Hay on what he knew was his final visit.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=538–39}}

On his return to the United States, despite his family's desire to take him to New Hampshire, the secretary went to Washington to deal with departmental business and "say ''[[Ave Caesar]]!'' to the President", as Hay put it.{{sfn|Taliaferro|p=539}} He was pleased to learn that Roosevelt was well on his way to settling the [[Russo-Japanese War]], an action for which the President would win the [[Nobel Peace Prize]].{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=539–41}} Hay left Washington for the last time on June 23, 1905, arriving in New Hampshire the following day. He died there on July 1 of his heart ailment and complications. Hay was interred in [[Lake View Cemetery]] in Cleveland, near the grave of Garfield, in the presence of Roosevelt and many dignitaries, including Robert Lincoln.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=541–44}}